Chapter 26
26
Growing up, Ezra was taught that Lag BaOmer was meant to be a break in mourning, the one day in the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot that people could get married and shave and probably a hundred other little things that Ezra never paid attention to.
What he did pay attention to was the part where every year, Dad and Uncle Joe built a fire in the connecting yard between the house and the Chapel, and even if it was a school night when they weren’t usually allowed to have dessert, he got to have as many marshmallows as he wanted.
It’s the little things, Ezra thinks, as he and Jonathan make their way up the driveway, that stick with you.
Dad and Aaron already have a robust fire going when Ezra and Jonathan show up. To Ezra’s relief, they seem to have agreed to take it easy on them. Aaron teases Jonathan about cradle robbing and Dad makes a few playful remarks about keeping things PG-rated any time they’re in the Chapel, because scandalizing someone into a heart attack probably won’t be good for business unless they managed to scoop up the client. It’s so close to a return to his old dark humor that Ezra lets it go without comment, even if Jonathan flushes red. The fire crackles cheerfully in the iron pit, and they sit around it in the lawn chairs Aaron pulled out of storage, while Dad pours them mugs from a large thermos of hot spiked lemonade, Zayde’s own recipe of bourbon and lemon and honey.
It’s warm and tart and tastes like old memories and rare bursts of sweet affection, and Ezra catches Jonathan smiling down at his cup, like he’s tasting the same. He digs around in the milk crate by the thermos and makes Jonathan a s’more like he promised. The marshmallows are, in fact, kosher, and therefore taste like they’ve been freeze-dried, but Jonathan eats it anyway and lets Ezra kiss the sticky remnants off his lips.
Aaron throws a twig at them. “Hey,” he says. “What did we just say about PDA?”
Ezra sticks his tongue out at him but goes back to his own chair, even if he does scoot it a little closer to Jonathan’s. He’d gone back and forth about whether to bring Sappho with him and decided against it, just in case things go badly tonight—she hates raised voices, and the last thing he wants is to have her barking added to any potential yelling. He almost feels naked without her at his side, his hand constantly dropping down to scratch her ears before he remembers she’s not there. “You guys did a good job,” he says, nodding toward the fire. “It usually takes until later for it to get up this high.”
“It only usually takes longer because we have to build in an hour of debating structure before we even get started,” Dad says dryly. “For some reason, your brother didn’t seem like he wanted to argue this year.”
Aaron blinks back a look that would be all innocence if not for the marshmallows puffing out his cheeks.
Dad gives him an amused look that suggests he’s not fooled.
He seems better, Ezra thinks, studying him. “Dad?” His father, reaching for the thermos on the ground to refill his mug, cocks a questioning brow. “Thank you. For doing this tonight. I know it’s been hard, the last few weeks, and this—this is nice.”
Dad replaces the cap on the thermos and sets it down, leaning back with his mug. He looks into the flames for a long moment, the firelight illuminating each line in his face, making him look older and more tired. “You know,” he begins, “your zayde—” He pauses, glancing at Jonathan. “My father,” he adds by way of explanation, and Jonathan nods. “He had a complicated relationship with his faith. But he liked this holiday. He liked the symbolism of it. He spent so much of his life either grieving or helping other people grieve, and this was the night that he could just look into the fire and…Well. I like to think that he used it to just take a mental rest for a little while, but who knows what he was thinking.”
Aaron, watching him with thoughtful eyes, sends a tight-lipped look Ezra’s way. Ezra shakes his head, a minute motion he hopes Dad doesn’t catch.
Not yet. A little peace and quiet, a little while longer.
“Anyway,” Dad says, giving himself a bit of a shake, as if rousing himself from a dream. “That’s what I wanted tonight. A bit of normal in the middle of—well.”
Well, indeed.
They’re spared from having to break the silence when Becca emerges from the back door of the house, a tote bag over her shoulder. “Sorry I’m late,” she says, crossing the yard. Like the rest of them, she’s dressed for a cold spring evening, in jeans and boots and an oversize sweater. “Did I miss anything fun?”
“First round of drinks and Jonathan and Ezra being gross about marshmallows,” Aaron says immediately. “What’s in the bag?”
“Therapy,” she says brightly and with no other explanation, plopping down in the empty chair between Ezra and Aaron and making grabby hands toward the thermos. Ezra does some mental math and figures they’re about half a cup away from breaking out the second thermos, and sure enough, Dad empties the first into the mug he pours for Becca, then tops it off from the second one when she looks at him with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Pace yourself,” he says dryly as he passes it over.
“I am an adult, ” Becca says, sniffing, and earns one of Dad’s rare chuckles. She pulls her legs up onto her chair and wiggles her fingers at Jonathan in a wave. “Hi. Is Ezra being nice to you?”
“Hey,” Ezra protests, but Jonathan leans around Ezra’s chair to grin at her.
“Just between us, I’m in it for the dog.”
“I am right here, ” Ezra complains. Jonathan laughs, dropping a kiss to his cheek as he sits back. The easy affection makes Ezra flush, and he hopes the fire isn’t quite bright enough to tell on him.
The sky tonight is dazzling, last night’s storm washing away the fog and cloud cover that had hidden the stars from view for most of the past week. Ezra tilts his head back and lets himself look, catching familiar patterns but mostly just enjoying the sight as the quiet conversation around him fades to a background murmur, like the crackle of the burning wood. The heat coming off the fire keeps him from shivering, and Jonathan’s fingers, laced through his, are cold at the tips but warm everywhere else. His eyes sting when the wind blows, but even that is a clean, piney sort of smell that reminds him of summer camping trips to Burlingame.
Jonathan squeezes his hand. “Not so bad,” he teases, and Ezra wrinkles his nose at him.
“Famous last words,” he mutters back, just as Becca finishes her mug.
“So,” she says with forced cheer and exaggerated eyebrows. “Are we going to do this thing, or what?”
On the other side of the fire, Dad raises his eyebrows. “Are there plans I don’t know about?”
Becca gives Ezra an expectant look. He sighs and drops Jonathan’s hand. Jonathan cocks his head, puzzled, but lets him go without protest. “Kind of,” he admits.
Dad’s brow furrows slightly, and he glances at Aaron, who spreads his hands.
“It’s a family thing.”
“I see,” Dad says. Wariness flickers in his eyes. “Should I be expecting your mother to pop out from behind the house after all?”
“Yeah,” Becca drawls. “Because that’s what we need.”
Privately, Ezra had been holding out a hope that she would decide to show up and take a bit of responsibility, but apparently, it’s not his night. “All right,” he says, already feeling the ease of the night slip away. “So—here’s the thing.”
Dad, to his credit, listens without interrupting. Aaron holds up his end of the deal and does as much of the talking as Ezra does. They tell him about the off-book accounts, about everything they’d been able to figure out so far, about how long Mom had been padding their income and covering her tracks. Dad’s expression is utterly blank, but Ezra feels horrible all the same, especially when he has to be the one to tell him what Mom said about Zayde. He tries to soften it as much as he can, to make it less about decades of financial distrust and more about the way Dad would prefer to help than to profit, but that doesn’t change the fact that she hid it because she didn’t trust him to keep them afloat any more than Zayde had.
“We just thought you deserved to know,” Aaron says, when they run out of information and platitudes both and Dad still hasn’t reacted beyond a few occasional twitches of his eyebrows. “And it’s— Look, the financials are rough, I know we’ve only been scraping by, even with the extra money, but we’ve been looking at the numbers and I think we can find a few more places to trim so that we can get ahead of it a bit more. We probably can’t fix it right away, but—”
“Aaron,” Dad interrupts, and Aaron looks almost grateful to be able to stop talking, draining the rest of his drink and casting a longing look at the thermos by Dad’s chair. “It’s okay.”
“Mom has been hiding money from you to the tune of multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, ” Becca says flatly. “In what universe is this okay?”
Dad presses his mouth into a thin line, and the puzzle pieces click together in Ezra’s head.
“You already knew,” he says. Dad doesn’t answer, and a huff of disbelieving laughter bubbles out of Ezra’s chest. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Dad says.
One word, no elaboration. Aaron drops his head into his hands, rubbing his eyes, but Becca just gapes.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Becca,” Aaron says, lowering his hands, but she’s already on her feet.
“No, shut up,” she says. “How long have you known? Did you know she was cheating on you, too?”
Dad blanches. “No. Of course not.”
“Oh, of course not, he says, like we should all just be fine with the financial deception, but the secret affair is too far—”
“ Becca, ” Aaron says again, sharper now, and she whirls on him.
“What? Are you just okay with this?”
Aaron rubs his forehead. “No I’m not okay with this, but—”
“I only knew about the accounts because I got a copy of Zayde’s will,” Dad says. “He wasn’t quiet about what he thought of the way I ran the business. But he knew he’d have to leave the Chapel to me if he wanted to keep it in the family. He always said marrying your mother was the best business decision I ever made.”
“Oh my God,” Becca says faintly. “It’s no wonder none of us can fucking communicate, no one in this family can go more than a day without lying about shit!”
Ezra flinches. Jonathan’s hand shifts from his back to his shoulder, like he’s trying to ground him, but Ezra can’t take his eyes off Becca. He doesn’t like how close she’s getting to the fire. “Becca,” he warns. “Take a breath, okay?”
She snaps her head around to him so fast he sucks in a breath at how close the swirl of her hair gets to the flames. “Don’t patronize me. You’re as bad as he is!”
“I’m not saying I’m not,” he says, dislodging Jonathan’s hand as he gets to his feet. Behind her, Aaron eases himself up at the same time, though neither of them moves toward her. “I just really don’t want you to set your hair on fire.”
“Of course,” she says sarcastically, but she does yank her hair over her shoulder, twisting it into a braid in sharp, jerky movements. “Because God forbid you deal with your own shit burning down before you start trying to handle someone else’s, right?” Her eyes snap to Jonathan, and Ezra has half a heartbeat to think Oh, please don’t before she’s crossing her arms over her chest. “Have you even told him about Ben?”
Ezra closes his eyes.
Jonathan, very quietly, very uncertainly, says, “What?”
Heart in his throat, Ezra forces himself to turn toward him. “I—”
A twig snaps in the fire, gunshot-loud.
“Okay,” Dad says. “I think we should all just—”
“Do fucking not, ” Becca snaps. She picks up the tote bag she’d brought out of the house with her—she never showed them what was in it, Ezra realizes—and starts toward the back door.
Dad gets up, as if moving to stop her.
Aaron catches his arm, shaking his head. “Let her go. She needs to cool off.” His shoulders are a tight, set line, his grip hard on Dad’s sleeve. “And you’re right, we’re not done here.”
Ezra watches the play of emotions across Dad’s face, all of them tense and none of them decipherable, but he gives a tight nod.
“Ezra,” Jonathan says.
Fuck. Ezra digs his nails into his palms so hard he can feel the threat of broken skin. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely.
Even when they were strangers, Jonathan never looked at Ezra like this. “What was she talking about? What about Ben?”
“I can’t…” Everything from Ezra’s rib cage to his throat is tight and hot, which doesn’t make sense when the fingers closing around his heart feel so icy. “I was going to tell you, I just— I didn’t know how to say it so you’d believe me.”
“Believe you about what ?” Jonathan’s voice cracks on something almost like a plea, like he’d do anything for them to be having any conversation other than this one, and God but Ezra feels that in his bones so badly he could cry. “You’re not telling me anything, you’re just freaking me out.”
“I know,” Ezra says desperately. “I know, and I’m sorry, and I can explain, I swear I can—” He can’t, but fuck, he can at least try . “I just need you to—”
Something red and orange catches his eye, and he breaks off, turning on instinct toward the house, half a heartbeat too slowly.
Ezra doesn’t realize until Jonathan’s grabbing his arm and yanking him against him that the crash ringing in his ears was the sound of breaking glass, the kitchen windows shattering, burst from the inside with a roar of too-bright flame.